Recent Essays

This series presents perspectives on contemporary theater in Romania. It is curated by Iulia Popovici, who recently concluded a month long ArtsLink residency at HowlRound.

Dani Snyder-Young reviews Silk Road Rising's world premiere of Motti Lerner's Paulus, and explores the modern ramifications for a play about religious inclusivity in Israel.

If you have an idea for a topic or if you want to moderate the discussion, contact us on Twitter @HowlRound or post a comment here. Our next Howl will be on Thursday, December 12 at 11am PST/ 1pm CST/ 2pm EST/ 19:00 GMT.

Sibiu International Theatre Festival creates a dialogue from the performances of different cultures. It brings up the questions of how artists perceive and what that means within our work.

The fall of communism in 1989 ledway to the democratisation of art. Ioana Tamas gives the breakdown of how arts management had to be developed to make this transition successful.

Writing about a national theater as far away from the United States as the Romanian one means, in the end, performing exoticism—playing the monkey for the zoo visitors that do expect a monkey. Because, in the end, it’s not about the theater—a specific economic and aesthetic system designed to produce and share artistic work—it’s about how a society, in this case Romanian society, is perceived at an international level.

Holly L. Deer unpacks just how damaging Katy Perry's orientalism really is, why pop culture's racism is running rampant, and how the political ramifications of appropriating other cultures.

Jay Scheib's adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Platnov titled Platonov, or The Disinherited merges with grunge culture-drugs, sex, and alcohol to take a look at values and viewpoints. 

Jacob Richman shares insight into his piece The (unfinished) Ballad of Adam and Elena Emery as a roving performance. 

We all love a good fight (in a show). A reminder to keep things real by checking in with actors and their weapons, maintain a full fight call, and maintaining consistent order.